Wake-Up Calls for Managers
For the hard parts no one prepares you for
When the path isn’t clear, the stakes are high, and the answers aren’t obvious—this is where managers struggle most.
Wake-Up Calls for Managers delivers practical, real-world guidance for navigating:
- Tough conversations
- Leading through uncertainty
- Building influence without authority
- Driving results through others
The Leadership Caffeine Blog
Leaders: Are You Coaching Your Teams for Creativity?
In group settings, when I ask senior leaders whether they've ever attended or sponsored their team members to attend programs focused on creativity and idea generation, the silence is palpable. Alternatively, it's hard to regain control of the discussion when I ask...
Leaders: Are You Coaching Your Teams for Creativity?
There’s little doubt creativity is vital in the workplace, and that idea generation is the enabler of creative problem solving and innovation. The better our teams and colleagues are at generating ideas, the better the odds of surviving and thriving in our topsy-turvy world. Yet, idea generation and problem-solving practices are stale and decidedly lacking in creativity in too many organizations.
4 Key Skills Leaders Must Develop to Succeed in Today’s Workplace
With the clear disclaimer that there are no magic formulas, silver bullets or guaranteed fast-track approaches to success in the workplace, there are a number of critical steps you can take to accelerate progress and improve your odds. Here are 4 key skills you must develop to succeed in today’s workplace:
Leadership Caffeine™-The Importance of Cultivating Your Influence
While your own level of influence might not be something that crosses your mind on a daily basis, your relative level of influence in your organization is at least one reasonable proxy for measuring your effectiveness as a leader.
Management Week in Review for February 26, 2011
Every week, I share three thought-provoking management posts for the week. Fair warning: I take a broad view of management, so my selections will range from leadership to innovation to finance and personal development and beyond. This week’s selections feature content on dealing with a firm’s culture during periods of change, building great businesses the right way, and deliberately crushing your competitors through effective management and leadership. Enjoy!
Two Voices on Being Heard and Not Being Heard
Mary Jo Asmus and I are back with our third collaborative blogging effort, focusing on what it means and feels like to be heard and not to be heard. Our first efforts, “Two Voices on the Words of a Leader” and “Two Voices on Humility and the Effective Leader,” remain personal and reader favorites. I like the “Words” post so much…particularly Mary Jo’s portion, that with her permission, I’m including it in my forthcoming book, Leadership Caffeine-Ideas to Energize Your Professional Development.
Leadership Caffeine™: Time to Take out the 360-Degree Trash
Note: today’s rave is brought to you by one too many conversations with frustrated managers and employees over their firm’s evaluation systems. While I’m certain there’s a good 360-degree feedback program out there somewhere, the trash frequently heaped upon unwitting corporate victims by misguided management groups via their HR departments is….well, it’s trash. Please place it in a proper container and dispose of it before it starts to stink.
Coming Soon: A Saturday Serial & A View from the Millennial Perspective
During the next few weeks, I will kick off two new features here on the blog. The first will be a Saturday Management Serial…an on-going story involving fictional firms and companies and the buffet of leadership, management and business issues that require solving by you, the readers. The second new feature will offer a view from the youngest generation in the workforce on the realities of leading, managing and developing a career. We’ve heard a great deal from the 40-something management group on the challenges of leading the generations…now, we’ll hear the story from the other side of the age fence. Coming soon!
Management Week in Review for February 18, 2011
Every Friday, I share three thought-provoking management posts for the week. Fair warning: I take a broad view of management, so my selections will range from leadership to innovation to finance and personal development and beyond. This week’s selections feature content on gaining control of your body language, ensuring that your participative leadership approach is genuine, and dealing with employee and management communication challenges during periods of change. Enjoy!
Management Excellence Toolkit Part 2: Mind the Decision Traps
Part 1 of this series emphasized the importance of developing, updating and referencing a Decision Journal as part of your program to improve your decision-making effectiveness. In Part 2, we focus on understanding a bit more about how we make decisions, and I introduce the topic of decision traps.
Leadership Caffeine™-Get it Right When Starting Up with Your New Team
Stepping into the role of new (to the team) leader for an existing team is a daunting task. It’s also a time rich in opportunity for everyone involved, if the new leader executes a proper start-up strategy and avoids the most common start-up pitfalls.